The sequence of records of the warmest periods ever – or rather since rigorous scientific measurements have been carried out – seems to have no respite. According to the EU weather service, Copenicus, April 2024 was the warmest ever recorded on a global scale. In fact, the average surface air temperature stood at just above 15 degrees Celsius (15.03), 0.67°C higher than the average for the thirty-year reference period 1991-2020 for the month of April, 0. 14°C higher than the previous record, set in April 2016, and even 1.58°C higher than the April average of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). This is the 11th consecutive month that is the warmest on record, Copernicus specifies. Even the global sea temperature broke every record in April 2024: that recorded on the surface of the sea between the 60th parallel South and the 60th North was 21.04°C, the highest value ever recorded for this month, slightly below the 21.07°C recorded in March 2024. April was the 13th consecutive month in which the global sea surface temperature was the highest ever recorded in that month. Overall, the global average temperature of the last 12 months, from May 2023 to April 2024, was the highest ever recorded, 0.73°C above the thirty-year average 1991-2020 and 1.61°C above the average of the pre-industrial era 1850-1900. “El Nino peaked at the beginning of the year and sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific are now returning towards neutral conditions,” observes Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. However, noting that «while temperature variations linked to natural cycles such as El Nino come and go, the additional energy accumulated in the oceans and atmosphere from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to push global temperatures towards new records».
